[Question] Rogues during WotLK

[Shinrael]

Hey people,
I have a few questions about rogues during WotLK times. There was this friend of mine whom I was discussing WotLK times with and rogues as a topic was sort of an obstacle for our conversation as neither of us are rogue experts and so on. So please answer the following questions for me If possible give examples and reasons ( also feel free to throw in any useful information that you'd like to share ). Thanks in advance ^^

1) How strong were they ( in both PvE and PvP )? Give examples please.
2) Which was the best spec for PvE ( and leveling ) and which one was the best spec for PvP?
3) Did Subtlety use 2 daggers or a dagger and a sword? Also, did any of the specs need 2 daggers ?

Mod-note: Thought I would put this into the rogue forum, would give you a good chance of answers, I hope *smiles*

[Lochton]

Moved from General Discussion forum.

[Grand Crusader Absalom]

1: they were fairly consistent throughout the whole expansion in PvE (I think) and were great as combat arpen capped. Mut rogues were also great
2: I'm sure subtlety was the PvP spec. Mut was the "main" spec but if you were arpen capped then combat was right up there.
3: subtlety and mut both used daggers in both hands. Combat generally had a sword or mace. Rogues could wield axes around 3.2 I believe

[shadowboy]

Speaking PvE:
Following normal expansion trends, they were weak at the start (except for a bugged HaT that lead to eviscerate spamming early on). They got incremental improvements throughout the expansion. Assassination was stronger than combat and sub was nonexistant in PvE. In early ICC assassination was strong but as combat got more armor penetration gear it pulled ahead. At the end of the expansion rogues were pretty strong. Probably similar to or stronger than in SoO (compared to the class hierarchy) but not as strong as they were in DS.

I don't know how strong they were in pvp but the go-to spec was generally a mutilate/prep hybrid spec.

[Neurodilation]

1. Very strong in PvE, meh in PvP. From what I remember in PvP, rogues were mostly CC bots. You didn't necessarily get the kills, you just helped set them up. You also focused mostly on peeling. I may not be 100% correct on this since I arena'ed only minimally, but this was my impression.

2. For PvE, combat with high levels of armor penetration at high gear levels towards the end. Leveling was probably just a "do what you want" kind of thing. And for PvP it was sub due to the superior control. Though, as I just recalled, Mut/Prep was a popular one too.

3. Sub used two daggers. I don't believe it was able to use swords yet. I think that change came in Cata. Assassination also used only daggers as it still does. Combat was the only spec to use weapons other than daggers in the mainhand, and they were always paired with a fast offhand.

[Boricha]

Hey people,
I have a few questions about rogues during WotLK times. There was this friend of mine whom I was discussing WotLK times with and rogues as a topic was sort of an obstacle for our conversation as neither of us are rogue experts and so on. So please answer the following questions for me If possible give examples and reasons ( also feel free to throw in any useful information that you'd like to share ). Thanks in advance ^^

1) How strong were they ( in both PvE and PvP )? Give examples please.
2) Which was the best spec for PvE ( and leveling ) and which one was the best spec for PvP?
3) Did Subtlety use 2 daggers or a dagger and a sword? Also, did any of the specs need 2 daggers ?

Mod-note: Thought I would put this into the rogue forum, would give you a good chance of answers, I hope *smiles*

1) Arpen capped Combat rogues were doing very well, not leading the pack but higher than the middle. In PvP they were, in my opinion, relatively balanced compared to others.
2) Best PVE Spec - Combat if Arpen cap was attainable, mut was about on par otherwise. I don't think there really was a best leveling spec, I think I preferred Mut. The best PvP spec for almost all of WotLK was Mut, once 4.0 came out many switched to Subtlety before Cata released.
3) Subtlety used 2 daggers primarily. I think Wrath was when they made ambush usable with any weapon and had rogues trying different things for a bit. Mut also used 2 daggers.

[Wow]

1.Rogues were ok in pvp but by the end they were mostly stun bots with all the massive res increases rogue dmg went way down while the classes doing overpowered dmg were still doing overpowered dmg. Pve rogues were trash at the start and ok by the end but fury and fire wrecked all.
2. There was no "best" lvling spec. Assassination was the best spec until combat got full arp in icc, Pvp assassination was the best spec some went sub when the buffs in 3.3.3 to it happened.
3. 3.0-3.3 hemo needed a slow weapon for dmg, backstab dagger only and ambush dagger only, 3.3.3 made hemo do normal dmg with dagger. Ambush usable with any weapon happened in cata.

[Shinrael]

Thanks guys ^^ This helps a lot ^^

[Naiattavain]

Hi Silverrendy

I want to start off with your questions to answer.

first, Rogues strength seemed relative to what the other melee dps were at the time of wotlk. my friend and I were in the top 10 dps for our guild raids. I was combat between 8 and 10 slot and he was 8 to 1 slot as assassination. assassination seems to be the best single target spec for pumping out great dps for pve raiding during wrath. though it is different now (minor things such as to how many poisons we can use currently verse wotlk and mop poison rule applied to weapons. on over to pvp rogues seemed to be in the ballpark relative to an equal chance to win compared to other melee dps. rogue was in the ballpark with other classes during wotlk to pvp and get some entertainment from. rogue generally are anti caster to me, but all the classes as a whole are sky capped now for mop and rogue needs two things balanced for pvp in mop. Energy regen, energy cost redone and energy scaling with combo points applied across the board. this would lessen the gap between sky capping of other class' and rogues starting out to learn the class. end game would mean that rogue have decent sky capping damage just as every other class damage. to me that is balanced.

second, I leveled my rogue 1-70 part time as assassination by the time wotlk release I was 70. I enjoyed assassination because of the damage it had during the burning crusade. subtlety was by far the funnest to pvp with during wotlk, though I prefer sword and dagger offhand with sub. assassination could pvp during wrath it was more of the style you liked sub or assassination.

last, the weapon choice is your preference assination was required daggers to mutilate during wotlk.

thanks for taking us back then was fun writing this post.

[Sheltleth]

1: they were fairly consistent throughout the whole expansion in PvE (I think) and were great as combat arpen capped. Mut rogues were also great
2: I'm sure subtlety was the PvP spec. Mut was the "main" spec but if you were arpen capped then combat was right up there.
3: subtlety and mut both used daggers in both hands. Combat generally had a sword or mace. Rogues could wield axes around 3.2 I believe

1. Rogues were really good through the entire expansion. At least I was. I was combat with full ArP and was consistantly #1 on the dps charts.

2. Combat was pretty much the main PvE spec. Assassination was actually the pvp spec then because of shadowstep and prep.

3. Not many people were sub in wrath as it was the inferior spec. Sub didnt start getting attention until cata when enough people bitched about it.

[Wow]

1. Rogues were really good through the entire expansion. At least I was. I was combat with full ArP and was consistantly #1 on the dps charts.

2. Combat was pretty much the main PvE spec.

Your first sentence pretty much tells the whole story. You played combat you liked combat you thought combat was good all expansion because of how it was doing vs your raid group. This is the problem with these kinds of questions people sometimes will go off on what they remember it for them and not how it really was. If I posted on rogues back in wrath on how I did vs my raid of that time then rogues would have never seemed weak at any point either.

Assassination was actually the pvp spec then because of shadowstep and prep.

What?

[Holybell]

It was either combat or assassination, you needed armor pen to make combat work, but in the end it was really close which one you used.

[Shinrael]

Hi Silverrendy

I want to start off with your questions to answer.

first, Rogues strength seemed relative to what the other melee dps were at the time of wotlk. my friend and I were in the top 10 dps for our guild raids. I was combat between 8 and 10 slot and he was 8 to 1 slot as assassination. assassination seems to be the best single target spec for pumping out great dps for pve raiding during wrath. though it is different now (minor things such as to how many poisons we can use currently verse wotlk and mop poison rule applied to weapons. on over to pvp rogues seemed to be in the ballpark relative to an equal chance to win compared to other melee dps. rogue was in the ballpark with other classes during wotlk to pvp and get some entertainment from. rogue generally are anti caster to me, but all the classes as a whole are sky capped now for mop and rogue needs two things balanced for pvp in mop. Energy regen, energy cost redone and energy scaling with combo points applied across the board. this would lessen the gap between sky capping of other class' and rogues starting out to learn the class. end game would mean that rogue have decent sky capping damage just as every other class damage. to me that is balanced.

second, I leveled my rogue 1-70 part time as assassination by the time wotlk release I was 70. I enjoyed assassination because of the damage it had during the burning crusade. subtlety was by far the funnest to pvp with during wotlk, though I prefer sword and dagger offhand with sub. assassination could pvp during wrath it was more of the style you liked sub or assassination.

last, the weapon choice is your preference assination was required daggers to mutilate during wotlk.

thanks for taking us back then was fun writing this post.

Never expected my thread to do someone else good too Glad to hear it hehe. During my early days in WoW ( end of vanilla, start of tbc ) I was just leveling 10 different characters of all classes and races, I was exploring zones and so on. I haven't played much rogue, it's my weakest class to say hehe. But I've always played my rogues as Subtlety. It just seems the one with which you can have the best time. I mean, stealthing, getting behind people, doing some large crit. That's fun! I like sneaking around. During Cata I actually mained a subtlety rogue ( along with a blood dk, feral druid, arcane mage and fury warrior - the big 5 of Cataclysm ) and loved ganking dueling hordies in Org I see someone about to lose a duel, shadowstep, ambush, vanish. Was super fun! I was so fast that some of the dueling guys were like "WTF how did you die?!" I remember it well, ah good memories ^^

Also thanks to the mod for moving the thread. I was wondering whether to put the thread in general or rogue section ( as it fits both ) and thought it will get better responses in the general discussion but apparently I was wrong hehe ^^

[Naiattavain]

I very much miss the fact that we could apply three poisons to target during wrath; 4 during pvp with the pvp gear could use deadly, wound, mind numbing and crippling.

had to apply them on weapons back then.

now though for MoP may only use two which is damage and non-damage poison (with the pvp gear may apply three)

Id really like to see the freedom of applying three poisons back to rogues. applied to mainhand', offhand and throwing weapon back again just like in wrath.

[shadowboy]

The only way you could apply 3 poisons in wrath was with weapon swapping, which triggered a gcd and reset the swing timer.

[Deleted]

Hey people,
I have a few questions about rogues during WotLK times. There was this friend of mine whom I was discussing WotLK times with and rogues as a topic was sort of an obstacle for our conversation as neither of us are rogue experts and so on. So please answer the following questions for me If possible give examples and reasons ( also feel free to throw in any useful information that you'd like to share ). Thanks in advance ^^

1) How strong were they ( in both PvE and PvP )? Give examples please.
2) Which was the best spec for PvE ( and leveling ) and which one was the best spec for PvP?
3) Did Subtlety use 2 daggers or a dagger and a sword? Also, did any of the specs need 2 daggers ?

Mod-note: Thought I would put this into the rogue forum, would give you a good chance of answers, I hope *smiles*

In pve, to start off: t7/naxx.

- Assassinations was sort of weak/ok. There was a bug that let instant poison proc twice. Double webbed death was best in slot.
- Combat rogues rocked with double wound poison (used to deal damage).
- Subulety: HAT (honour amongst theives) was bugged and interacted strangely with with other hat rogues in your group. Basically you could spam eviscerate non stop in a raid environment, even as only rogue there but it worked better with more hat rogues. There was no limit per second on number of combo points you could gain, despite what the display text said.

t8: Ulduar
Most rogues had dropped rupture until full t8 which let rupture have a chance to crit.
- Assassinations got buffed, made it very good. HFB could made to stop stacking and instead became a flat +15% damage.
- Combat was nice. Ulduar had nice swords.
- Subulety hat got fixed, sub wasnt viable.

t9 - trial of grand crusader or whatever
Armour penetration stacking was the in thing. You now had gem slots/gear available to stack it all the way to 100%. Arp was unique in that its power scaling increased the more of it you had (the gap between say 10-20% was worth significantly more* [Edit, less] than 90-100%) due to some complicated maths, it became *the* stat to stack if you were combat or sub.

*Edit
I actually meant to say, that going from 90-100% provided a much larger increase to damage than going 10-20%. "Each point being worth more than the last" is a great way to describe it.


t10 - ICC.
- Arp got fixed/nerfed/removed I think.
- Stacking haste was great for mutilate.
- Such speed, Much fun, super fast, wow wow mutiliate

[Vigilate]

t10 - ICC.
- Arp got fixed/nerfed/removed I think.
- Stacking haste was great for mutilate.
- Such speed, Much fun, super fast, wow wow mutiliate

ArP was definitely still a thing. You just needed more of it and it wasn't as powerful iirc.

[shadowboy]

ArP was definitely still a thing. You just needed more of it and it wasn't as powerful iirc.

It was just as powerful. You just needed more rating to hard cap. Iirc, the hard cap was raised to ~1250 rating, which was very difficult to reach. I believe I had ~1200 rating points at peak putting me at ~95% arp. I was pretty much full 25N/10H geared with a couple pieces of 25H.

And to respond to Murdeh: The gap between 90% and 100% was SIGNFICANTLY bigger than the gap between 10% and 20% armor penetration, hence increasing returns. Every point of armor penetration was better than the point before it, both marginally and relatively--meaning the stat scaled steeper-than-exponential (an exponential curve has constant relative value but increasing marginal value).

[Brianjosel]

Like everyone has said, it was either Combat or Mutilate in PvE, outside of Sub in Naxx.

PvP was mostly the mutilate/preparation hybrid spec for most of Wrath, although full Shadowdance Sub builds were being used by some of the higher end arena rogues after 3.3, due to the mobility and control it offered against the extreme amount of caster cleaves that existed in the last season of that xpac. Really, Shadowmourne warriors and control centered rogue builds were the only decently represented melee that season.

[Artorius]

It was just as powerful. You just needed more rating to hard cap. Iirc, the hard cap was raised to ~1250 rating, which was very difficult to reach. I believe I had ~1200 rating points at peak putting me at ~95% arp. I was pretty much full 25N/10H geared with a couple pieces of 25H.

And to respond to Murdeh: The gap between 90% and 100% was SIGNFICANTLY bigger than the gap between 10% and 20% armor penetration, hence increasing returns. Every point of armor penetration was better than the point before it, both marginally and relatively--meaning the stat scaled steeper-than-exponential (an exponential curve has constant relative value but increasing marginal value).

The 100% cap went from 1200 rating to 1399 rating if I remember correctly.
Armor Pen used to scale so good because it used some very weird way of working, it was designed to never let people fully ignore the enemy's (specially mail and plate players) armor at normal circumstances even at 100%... Although you could reach that in pve if the bosss was raid debuffed with FF/Sunder Armor.

Edit: If anyone is interested, the armor reduction was calculated by this:

First of all we need to get the C value based on lvl alone:
If (targetlevel<60)
C=400+85*targetlevel
Else
C=400+85*targetlevel+4.5*85*(targetlevel-59);

Then: (armor + C)/3 to get the armor that will be bypassed.

C=16635 for lv 83.
Wrath Bosses had 13083 armor.